Tempo de praia

Or, beach weather

It's not that I'm obsessed with the meteorological situation, but hearing about it being 8ºC in Oxford a few days before it got to 28ºC here was definitely one interesting feature of the last couple of weeks. We've recently had loads of sunshine and enough warmth to make me wonder why on earth I got out my winter coat at the beginning of October... it's been relegated to the back of my wardrobe again now!

Blue sky - no complaints

Of course, the only logical course of action was to make the most of the weekend, since I spent the previous one mainly sleeping, and most of the week sitting at my desk in the office. On Saturday we had a great rowing session with about four times the number of people who are normally there, although the ratio of 1 woman: 4 men remained constant, which meant I went out in a women's four (after a tank session). It was a fun way to spend the morning.

In the afternoon I went over to Carly's, with a stop at everyone's favourite supermarket, Minipreço, to pick up some provisions. Carly was hosting an amazing multinational bring-something-to-eat dinner and I vaguely helped her make a traditional bread-and-butter-pudding (her dish) and also cooked some vegetables (mine). Although vegetables are clearly not specific to the UK, I would argue that eating large quantities of vegetables is apparently a foreign concept to the Portuguese, with the exception of soup, and therefore it was a completely appropriate contribution. (Also I miss vegetables. Chips for lunch every day does not count.) The party went on all evening and I met lots of fun people from various corners of the world, and was sad to go home at about midnight (although also sleepy, which was why I decided not to continue to the bars of Bairro Alto with some more experienced party-goers).

The same, but different: St George's, the Church of England's outpost in Lisbon

Sunday brought another trip to church in Estrela, followed by a lovely visit to the beach, again with Carly. We got the train from Cais do Sodré, and had a brief peek in the modernised market as well -- it has all kinds of shops and restaurants, and seemed somewhere worth coming back to.

Carly in the market

For this beach excursion we went to Carcavelos - although the stretch of sand is much longer than at Estoril, it was also much more crowded, possibly because everyone was taking advantage of the unexpected heat, and possibly because it's well-known as the place to go for surfing. The waves were pretty impressive so the reputation is understandable! Carly and I enjoyed swimming, successfully avoiding collisions with surfboards, picnicked, and generally soaked up the rays (factor 50 sun cream permitting).

Golden sand, big waves, and lots of surfers!

And a beautiful walk back home through Lisbon at night (apologies for the bad photo)

Otherwise, life has gone on as normal - lots of hours in the office, lunches at the tasca, dinners with Luísa and Elena, and various rowing and swimming adventures. I even ended up going running once - out of character, but we were a person short at the rowing club, so there was no alternative... I also had the added excitement of going out for coffee with two Oxford tutors (separately) - funny that they should both be in Lisbon, but logical considering they work on Portuguese language and literature... I've also enjoyed catching up with friends and family - the wonders of skype, google hangouts, facebook and email mean that, even far from home, it's hard to be too lonely.

Thank you for reading :-)